Bandits, Big Swords, and the PLA: Regime Change in Rural China
by Prof. Brian DeMare,Wednesday, July 10, 2024, 2pm
The formal establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 heralded the arrival of what the Chinese Communist Party proudly called “New China.” But what did the establishment of New China look like at the grassroots level? Discussing his new book Tiger, Tyrant, Bandit, Businessman: Echoes of Counterrevolution from New China, Prof. Brian DeMare uses rare archival sources from rural police investigations to bring a tale of a bandit uprising against the Communist regime to life. Prof. DeMare will also highlight how our understanding of these years of revolutionary upheaval are deeply complicated by the limitations of archival materials.
Prof. Brian DeMare teaches at Tulane University. A specialist in archives and narratives, he has written three books on Maoist revolution. His first book, Mao’s Cultural Army (Cambridge, 2015), explored how the Communists deployed drama troupes to mobilize soldiers and farmers alike. Land Wars (Stanford, 2019), Prof. DeMare’s second book, is the only English language study on the multiple rounds of land reform that brought Communist rule to the countryside between 1946 and 1952. This talk is based on his latest book, Tiger, Tyrant, Bandit, Businessman: Echoes of Counterrevolution from New China (Stanford, 2022). Use code: TIGER20 for 20% off.
Established in 1980, the mission of the Northwest China Council is to promote a greater understanding of Chinese history, culture, business, and contemporary affairs.
